Coalition forces are routing the Taliban in Kandahar province, forcing its fighters to abandon bases they've held for years, Afghan officials say.

Ahmed Wali Karzai, half-brother of Afghan president Hamid Karzai, told The Associated Press late Wednesday that he believed most of the insurgents had left before NATO and Afghan forces began an operation to wrest control of the province in July.

He said other fighters had been arrested or killed and there was not a single Taliban base left in Kandahar. That claim could not be verified, The Associated Press reported.

Karzai, who heads a provincial council in Kandahar, said government officials were moving in to set up institutions in areas cleared of Taliban by security forces.

Improving residents' quality of life is seen as crucial to winning their long-term support.

The apparent military success comes amid a new diplomatic push for peace with talks between leading Taliban figures and the Afghan government. The New York Times reported Wednesday that NATO had flown some Taliban officials to the talks, although the U.S. government has stressed it is not involved.

At a press conference in Kabul Thursday, a spokesman for Afghanistan's high peace and reconciliation committee refused to confirm or deny NATO's involvement in transporting Taliban leaders to the talks, saying any disclosure might jeopardize the process.

He also refused to comment on an unconfirmed report that Mullah Baradar, previously the Taliban's overall military commander who was arrested in Karachi, Pakistan, in February, was involved in the talks.

"We now have the initiative. We have created momentum," Maj. Gen. Nick Carter, the British commander of the NATO coalition forces in southern Afghanistan who has overseen the Kandahar operation for the last year, told the newspaper. "It is everything put together in terms of the effort that has gone in over the last 18 months and it is undoubtedly having an impact."

Large numbers of American and Afghan government troops have been sent to Kandahar, the birthplace of the Taliban, in recent months.

"Afghans will tell you, if you have a peaceful Kandahar, you will have a peaceful Afghanistan," Carter told the Times.

However he added "only time will tell" as to the ultimate success of the operation, which began in August when Afghan forces began to clear Mehlajat on the southern outskirts of Kandahar city, the newspaper said.

U.S. troops then moved in from the north, into the rural district of Arghandab. Soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division moved into the Zhare district in the southwest, where the Times said they encountered strong resistance at first.

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The Taliban had created a fortified redoubt of command posts and mined areas in an area called the horn of Panjwai over the last four years, the Times reported.

Last weekend, an airborne assault was mounted by a combined Afghan-U.S. force which the Times said had surprised the Taliban in its intensity.

The paper, citing NATO commanders, local people and the Taliban itself, said many Taliban commanders had fled to Pakistan and most of the fighters had also gone away or hidden their weapons.

New rocket
Local people said the Taliban had been shocked by the attacks and, in particular, the use of a new rocket introduced in the last two or three weeks, the Times said.

Carter told the paper this was probably a Himar or High Mobility Artillery Rocket. "They are extraordinarily precise; they are accurate to a meter," he said.

Lt. Col. Rodger Lemons, the commander of Task Force 1-66 in Arghandab, told the Times that insurgent attacks had fallen from 50 a week in August to 15 a week in October, although the colder weather may be playing a part.

Lemons said he felt Taliban militants were losing heart. "A lot are getting killed," he told the Times. "They are not receiving support from the local population, they are complaining that the local people are not burying their dead, and they are saying: 'We are losing so many we want to go back home.'"

A Taliban fighter who spoke to the Times by telephone on condition that he would not be named, said the insurgents had pulled back but would try to return later.

"We are not there anymore, we are not preparing to fight a big battle, but we are waiting," he said. "We are waiting until this force has been exhausted and has done all they are supposed to do, and later on our fighters will re-enter the area."

However, a senior Afghan police officer was jubilant.

"We broke their neck," Hajji Niaz Muhammad, the police chief in the Arghandab District, told the Times. "There is no doubt they are very weak in this area now."

However, the coalition's experience in the former Taliban stronghold of Marjah offers a cautionary tale.

The southern Afghan town was seized from the Taliban eight months ago, but coalition forces are still trying to clear the town.

Years of Taliban control may have ended in Marjah, but the Taliban never left — they simply went underground, blending in among civilians, taking advantage of the region's terrain of agricultural fields and irrigation trenches to stage daily ambushes of American patrols.

The Marines have found bloody clothes and spent bullet casings and bombs meant to kill them. They've heard bullets flying overhead and seen muzzle flashes in tree lines. But finding insurgents is another story altogether.

"The only time we see them is when we're in contact" in a gunfight, Cpl. Chuck Martin, 24, of Middletown, R.I, was quoted by The Associated Press in an article Tuesday.

Afghan youths light candles in front of the destroyed palace of Darul Aman to mark the killing of civilians by the communist regime during the Russian occupation, in Kabul on Sept. 29, 2013. Afghanistan held two days of mourning to mark the deaths of 5,000 people killed under the communist regime in 1970s.
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NATO soldiers take cover behind an armored vehicle as they defuse explosive materials recovered during an operation in Ghazni, on Sept. 20.
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Miners carry the body of one of their colleagues following a mine collapse in Ruyi Du Ab district on Sept. 16. The coal mine in a remote area of Samangan province caved in after a gas explosion on Sept. 14, and at least 28 miners were confirmed dead, officials said.
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A boy runs on Sept. 15 near a massive compound that ex-jihadist warlord Haji Mohammad Almas Zahid is building in the fields of Parwan province. The complex is known to villagers as "The Palace."
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Soccer fans celebrate after Afghanistan's national team won the South Asian Football Federation championship, in Kabul on Sept. 12. President Hamid Karzai embraced Afghanistan's victorious team after they united the nation in a rare moment of shared joy, but officials also told jubilant Afghans to stop firing guns into the air in celebration. The team beat India 2-0 to win the championship in Kathmandu, Afghanistan's first international soccer title, sending tens of thousands of joyous Afghans into the streets.
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Afghan security forces arrive at the site of a suicide attack in Maidan Shar, the capital of Wardak province, on Sept. 8. At least four Afghan intelligence agents were killed and more than one hundred people were wounded, the provincial government said.
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A farmer works on the outskirts of Mazar-i-Sharif on Sept. 5. Only about 15 percent of Afghanistan's land, mostly in scattered valleys, is suitable for farming with about 6 percent of the land actually cultivated.
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Children climb on a fence as they sell tea in Kabul on Sept. 4. A tea vendor earns an average of $1 a day.
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Men stand near a destroyed car after floods in the Shakar Dara district of Kabul on Aug. 11. At least 22 people were killed and farmland was damaged when flash floods hit a plain near the capital, officials said.
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Men eat and drink tea in an old restaurant ahead of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, in Kabul on July 7. Throughout the month, devout Muslims must abstain from food and drink from dawn until sunset when they break the fast with the Iftar meal.
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Afghanistan National Army (ANA) soldiers walk with an arrested Taliban fighter, center, at an army station on the outskirts of Jalalabad on July 7. Three Taliban fighters were killed and one arrested after they attacked a police checkpoint on the Kabul-Jalalabad highway, officials said.
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Afghan security forces arrive following a suicide bombing in Kabul on July 2. Militants blew up a suicide car bomb at the gate to a NATO compound in Kabul and attacked guards with small-arms fire, killing four guards and two civilians, police said. All four suicide attackers were also killed.
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A would-be suicide attacker lies on the ground after his vest was defused in Jalalabad province on June 30. Afghan security forces captured the man before he blew himself up.
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A policeman keeps watch as two schoolgirls walk near the entrance of the presidential palace in Kabul on June 25. Taliban militants targeted the presidential palace, detonating two vehicles at an entrance to the complex.
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Afghans chant anti-government slogans after burning a truck believed to be owned by foreigners during a demonstration in Kabul on June 24. The protest centered around government plans to develop a subdivision in the capital on land that has long been occupied by squatters. Demonstrators blocked two main roads out of the city, and said they would continue their protests until the government gave them somewhere else to live.
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A Taliban flag is visible through a gap in a wall of the new office of the Afghan Taliban in Doha, Qatar, on June 20. The flag and other fanfare surrounding the militants' opening of an office in the Gulf state threatened to derail planned discussions with U.S. officials.
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Afghan security forces stand guard at the site of a suicide attack near Kabul military airport on June 10. All seven militants who launched the attack died in the assault, Afghan police said.
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A girl stands in the doorway of her house in the old sector of Herat on June 5. Over a third of Afghans are living in abject poverty, as those in power are more concerned with addressing their vested interests rather than the basic needs of the population, a UN report said.
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An Afghan security official is surrounded by the shadows of colleagues as he keeps watch at the scene of an attack in Jalalabad late on May 29. Militants launched a two-hour suicide and gun attack on a Red Cross office, killing one guard, officials said. It was the first time that Red Cross offices had been targeted since the organization began work in Afghanistan in 1987.
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A man looks at the dead body of a suicide attacker after he was killed by security personnel in Panjshir province on May 29. Six Taliban insurgents, some wearing suicide vests, attacked the governor's compound in the fiercely anti-Taliban Panjshir valley, killing one policeman, officials say.
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Police take cover during a gunbattle following a suicide attack in Kabul on May 24. A suicide bomber struck in the heart of the Afghan capital, sending a plume of smoke billowing over Kabul and setting up a gunbattle in the second major attack in the city in little over a week, police said.
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Children run away after an explosion in Kabul on May 24. Several large explosions rocked a busy area in the center of the Afghan capital.
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Police carry away a wounded person after a suicide bomber struck outside a provincial council headquarters in Pul-i-Khumri, Baghlan province, northern Afghanistan, on May 20. The council chief and 14 others were killed, police said. Afghan President Hamid Karzai condemned the bombing, saying the killing of civilians shows the “true nature” of the Taliban.
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Children peer through a fence that surrounds a swimming pool on a hill overlooking Kabul on May 17. The swimming pool built by the Soviets more then 30 years ago has rarely been used.
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U.S. soldiers from the 10th Combat Aviation Brigade and a Polish soldier, center, carry a dog on a stretcher from a UH-60 Black Hawk medevac helicopter during a training drill at Forward Operating Base Ghazni on May 17.
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Police arrive at the site where a police vehicle was hit by a remote-control bomb in the Kama district of Jalalabad province, east of Kabul, on May 11. The bomb killed and wounded several policemen, a local government spokesman said.
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A displaced man fixes his roof as the weather takes a turn for the worse, bringing rain and high winds at a refugee camp in Kabul on May 10. Thousands of Afghans displaced by the war live in slum-like conditions in camps on the edge of the capital.
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Farmers collect raw opium as they work in a poppy field in Khogyani district of Jalalabad of May 10. Opium poppy cultivation has been increasing for a third year in a row and is heading for a record high, the U.N. said in a report. Poppy cultivation is also dramatically increasing in areas of the southern Taliban heartland, the report showed, especially in regions where thousands of U.S.-led coalition troops have been withdrawn or are in the process of departing. The report indicates that whatever international efforts have been made to wean local farmers off the crop have failed.
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A foreign girl pops an ollie on her skateboard as Afghan youths gather for the Sound Central Festival at the French Cultural Center in Kabul on May 2. The Sound Central Festival, now on its second year, is the only event of its kind that takes places in Afghanistan, where music was banned by the Taliban until the end of 2001.
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Young men cheer as Afghan and foreign musicians perform during the Sound Central Festival at the French Cultural Center in Kabul on May 1. The concert is part of a cross-cultural program to increase awareness of music and the arts in Afghanistan.
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A man visits a wounded relative in the hospital in Kandahar on April 26, after a bus collided with the wreckage of a truck that was attacked by Taliban insurgents in Maiwand district. Scores of people aboard the bus were killed in the fiery crash, officials said.
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A street vendor sells balloons as he walks through the Karte Sakhi cemetery in Kabul on April 26. The cemetery, located at the foot of Kabul's TV Mountain, is located near the Karte Sakhi Shrine, the second most sacred place of Shia worship in the country.
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A woman stands in her home after it was damaged by a powerful earthquake in Charbagh village in Nangarhar province on April 24. Seven people were killed, dozens injured and many homes destroyed when a powerful earthquake struck eastern Afghanistan, officials said.
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Police officers from the anti-corruption Shafafiyat unit work on documents at their office in Kabul, April 23. Afghanistan's security forces are routinely accused of murder, rape and corruption on a grand scale, but the anti-corruption police unit's sole conviction last year was a junior policeman who forged some documents, the head of the unit told Reuters.
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U.S. soldiers along with members of Afghan National Army (ANA) march from the Forward Base Honaker Miracle at Watahpur District in Kunar province into the fields on the foot of Operating Post Rocky during a joint patrol led by the ANA to conduct artillery fire training on April 18.
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Relatives gather beside the body of Afghan men who were allegedly killed by Iranian soldiers while they were crossing the Afghan-Iran border, outside the Iranian consulate in Herat, Afghanistan, April 18. Dozens of protesters gathered outside the Iranian Embassy to demonstrate against the alleged killing of the men.
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An Afghan woman waits in a changing room to try out a new Burqa, in a shop in the old city of Kabul, April 11. Before the Taliban took power in Afghanistan, the Burqa was infrequently worn in cities. While they were in power, the Taliban required the wearing of a Burqa in public. Officially, it is not required under the present Afghan regime, but local warlords still enforce it in southern Afghanistan.
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A U.S. Black Hawk helicopter arrives at the scene of a NATO helicopter that crashed, killing two American service members in a field near Gerakhel, eastern Afghanistan, April 9.
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The lifeless bodies of Afghan children lay on the ground before their funeral ceremony, after a NATO airstrike killed several Afghan civilians, including ten children during a fierce gun battle with Taliban militants in Shultan, Shigal district, Kunar, eastern Afghanistan, April 7. The U.S.-led coalition confirms that airstrikes were called in by international forces during the Afghan-led operation in a remote area of Kunar province near the Pakistan border.
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An Afghan army soldier stands guard in the destroyed courthouse in Farah, western Afghanistan, April 4. Suicide bombers disguised as Afghan soldiers stormed a courthouse in a failed bid to free more than a dozen Taliban prisoners. Dozens of people, including the nine attackers were reported killed in the fighting. The assault in Farah province was the latest example of the Taliban's ability to strike official institutions despite tight security measures.
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Afghan elders attend a meeting hours after their villages were raided by a combined force of roughly 1,250 Afghans and 175 Americans on March 26. U.S. Brigade commander Col. Joseph "J.P." McGee listens with his U.S. translator, standing, and the Afghan police and army commanders in Khogyani district, Nangarhar province.
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U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, center, shakes hands with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, right, as U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, James Cunningham looks on at the Presidential Palace in Kabul on March 25. Kerry landed in Afghanistan for an unannounced visit, with relations badly frayed by Kabul's recent hostility to U.S.-led military efforts in the country.
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An Afghan prisoner leaves with his belongings from the Parwan Detention Facility after the U.S. military gave control of the last detention facility to Afghan authorities in Bagram, outside Kabul, March 25. The handover of Parwan Detention Facility ends a bitter chapter in American relations with President Hamid Karzai, who demanded control of the prison as a matter of national sovereignty.
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Afghan men peer through the former window of their destroyed school in the village of Budyali, Nangarhar province, March 19. Taliban militants attacked the nearby district headquarters in July 2011, then took refuge in the school. The Afghan National Army requested help from coalition forces, who responded with drones, fighter jets and rockets, leaving the school destroyed, according to village elders.
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Men in Kabul chant "U.S. special operations forces out!" as several hundred demonstrators march to the Afghan parliament building to protest the continued presence of U.S. commandos in Wardak province, March 16. The demonstrators are demanding the release of nine local citizens they believe were detained by the U.S. forces.
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An Afghan military officer falls asleep as he attends a graduation ceremony at the National Military Academy in Kabul on March 13. NATO is aiming to train 350,000 Afghan soldiers and police by the end of 2014 to ensure stability in Afghanistan, but challenges remain. Analysts have warned the country could plunge into another large-scale civil war after the NATO-led force departs by 2015.
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U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel steps aboard a C-17 military aircraft in Kabul as he prepares to return to Washington on March 11. Hagel ended his three day visit to Afghanistan, his first as Secretary of Defense.
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Sher Khan Farnoud, former Chairman of Kabul Bank, attends a hearing at a court in Kabul, March 5. Khalilullah Ferozi the former CEO and Sher Khan Farnoud the former Chairman of Kabul bank were sentenced to five years in jail by a special court in Kabul for their involvement in embezzlement of millions of dollars during their tenure as CEO and Chairman.
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Afghan Hazara and visiting foreign skiers set off at the start of the Afghan Ski Challenge in the Shahidan Valley of Bamiyan province, March 1. Seventeen Afghans and twelve foreigners participated in the third annual Afghan Ski Challenge in Bamiyan during which the Afghan Hazara men won the first three positions.
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An Afghan soldier walks by a damaged bus following a suicide attack in Kabul, Feb. 27. A man wearing a black overcoat and carrying an umbrella as a shelter against the heavy snow crossed a street in the Afghan capital early Wednesday morning toward an idling bus filled with Afghan soldiers, where he laid down and wiggled underneath. Then he exploded, engulfing the undercarriage of the bus in flames.
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More than five hundred men marched through the capital of Afghanistan's restive Wardak province on Feb. 26 in an outburst of anger against U.S. special forces accused of overseeing torture and killings in the area. A U.S. defense official in Washington said a review in recent months, in cooperation with Afghanistan's Defence Ministry and National Directorate of Security (NDS) intelligence agency, found no involvement of Western forces in any abuse.
(Mirwais Harooni / Reuters)
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Students study at a dormitory of Nangarhar University on the outskirts of Jalalabad, Feb. 23. Fighting Taliban militants in Afghanistan consumes most of the country's resources and rebuilding the educational system is not a political priority.
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Former Taliban militants attend a ceremony with the Afghan government after handing over their weapons in Herat, Feb. 17. About 35 former Taliban militants from Herat province handed over their weapons as part of a peace-reconciliation program.
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Afghan National Army officers shake hands with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, center, during a conference at the National Miltary Academy in Kabul on Feb. 16. Afghanistan has committed to taking full responsibility for its own security after U.S. forces leave, and the White House said Afghan security forces now number 352,000 troops, thanks to a broad NATO training effort.
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A female member of Afghan special forces aims her pistol during a training exercise on the outskirts of Kabul, Jan. 14. Afghanistan's army is training female special forces to take part in night raids against insurgents despite cultural taboos, as foreign combat troops recede ahead of their eventual departure. In a country where women traditionally are expected to stay home, their participation in the special forces is breaking new ground in ultraconservative Afghanistan.
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A wounded Afghan boy receives treatment at a hospital in Kunar province on Feb. 13. A NATO air strike killed 10 civilians, mostly women and children, in a raid on a Taliban hideout in a remote region of eastern Afghanistan, local officials said. "Five children, four women and a man were killed in the raid," Kunar provincial governor, Sayed Fazulullah Wahidi, told AFP.
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A model presents a traditional Afghan dress at a fashion show, launched by Young Women for Change (YWC), in Kabul, Feb. 8. The YWC organization is made up of volunteers across Afghanistan, who organize events to help empower Afghan women and improve their lives through social and economic participation. The creations at the fashion show are designed by Afghan women.
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Afghan men chant for justice and punishment for kidnapping gangs involved in the killing of a boy during a demonstration in Herat on Feb. 2. Thousands of Afghan men and women gathered to protest the killing.
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A member of the Afghan National Army provides security with a soldier from the U.S. Army's Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 36th Infantry Regiment during a patrol near Command Outpost AJK (short for Azim-Jan-Kariz, a near-by village) in Maiwand District, Kandahar Province, Jan. 31.
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Afghan school children study at an open classroom in the outskirts of Jalalabad, Jan. 30. Afghanistan has had only rare moments of peace over the past 30 years, its education system was undermined by the Soviet invasion of 1979, a civil war in the 1990s and five years of Taliban rule.
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Afghan security forces run on the roof of the Kabul traffic police headquarters as it is attacked by insurgents in Kabul, Jan. 21. A coordinated attack involving at least three suicide bombers and a powerful car bomb took aim at the headquarters, followed by a clash between at least one insurgent and security forces.
(Omar Sobhani / Reuters)
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An Afghan midwife attends her graduation ceremony at the governor's house, in Jalalabad, Jan. 16. Over 52 midwives graduated after receiving 2 years of training.
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A man who was injured in a suicide bomb attack targeting the office of the Afghan Intelligence agency, leaves the scene, in Kabul, Jan. 16. Six Taliban suicide bombers attacked Afghanistan's National Security Directorate office in downtown Kabul, injuring more than 30 people, most of whom were civilians, police said. One of the bombers exploded himself at the gate and rest were killed by the Afghan security forces before they would enter.
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President of Pentagon Memorial Fund James Laychak touches the banch of his brother David Laychak as he and U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, left, accompany Afghan President Hamid Karzai during a visit to the National 9/11 Pentagon Memorial, Jan. 10, in Arlington, Virginia. Karzai made a visit to Washington, where he met with President Barack Obama at the White House, to discuss the continued transition in Afghanistan and the partnership between the two nations.
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Governor of the Afghan province of Nangarhar, Gul Agha Sherzai, right, shakes hands with former Afghan prisoners during a ceremony in Jalalabad on Jan. 3, after their release from Bagram Prison. Some twenty prisoners, who had been accused of working with the Taliban, were released.
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An Afghan man poses for a portrait at a refugee camp in Herat on Jan. 2, 2013. Hundreds of families living in makeshift shelters around the Afghan capital Kabul collected blankets, charcoal and other supplies on Jan. 2 as authorities struggle to avoid last year's deadly winter toll. With temperatures dropping to -10 Celsius (14 Fahrenheit) at night in the city, the 35,000 refugees who live in the snow-covered camps face a battle to survive dire conditions protected only by plastic sheeting.
(Aref Karimi / AFP - Getty Images)
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NATO troops from the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) participate in celebrations on New Year's Eve in Kabul on Dec. 31, 2012. Thousands of NATO troops across Afghanistan celebrated the new year away from their homes.
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Video: Can talks bring Afghan peace?

Closed captioning of: Can talks bring Afghan peace?

>>>today and yesterday and just the last two days, 14 nato troops have been killed in avgs six killed yesterday, eight more killed today in five separate attacks. while violence is ramping up, efforts to end the war are taking some really dramatic turns. in addition to fighting the
taliban
on the increasingly deadly battlefields of
afghanistan
, u.s.-led forces there are also now, quote, permitting the movement of senior
taliban
leaders to attend initial peace talks in kabul. think about that for a second. mine everybody has admitted far while that the war will end in
afghanistan
the way most wars end, through talking, through negotiation.
general petraeus
late last month started prepping the u.s. public for that when he started you lining the conditions. he said, quote, this is how you end these kinds of insurgencies. it's understandable enough in theory. these things end by talking. but in practice, it is harder to fathom.
u.s. forces
knowing who senior
taliban
leaders are, knowing where they are, and knowingly letting them pass safely on their way to kabul and then presumably back home against to keep fightingup troops. joining us now a senior fell low for american progress. he specializes in the
middle east
and
south asia
. brian, thank you for being here. we appreciate your time.

>>hi, rachel.

>>it is tough leading
taliban
leaders pass safely when so many
u.s. troops
are being killed by the
taliban
. the only reason it makes sense is if these negotiations are going to end the war. do you really think it's likely they are?

>>i i don't think anyone really knows the answer to that question. i would draw a parallel to
iraq
. a big part of it is we reached out. today we actually have an
iraqi government
that actually has political forces that has
american blood
on their hands. that's a part of the nature of these conflicts, you know.

>>in terms of the parallel with
iraq
, one of the things that happened in
2006
is the insurgent groups on their own ? decided they wanted to be a part of negotiating some sort of solution, some sort of solution that excluded groups like say
al qaeda in iraq
. once those insurgent groups decided that on their own,
u.s. forces
decided to get in and try to facilitate it. is that same sort of thing happening where this is happening organically among afghans and that we are just trying to help or are we making this happen?

>>i think it may be happening organically. the key factor here, the difference, is pakistan and the fact that in pakistan a lot of these militant groups have a safe haven and we know this. u.s. operations have gone across the border. there have been multiple drone strikes there and they have supported elements of the insur jepcy. so they're the key
wild card
that make it a little bit more complicated than
iraq
and we have to be careful about these parallels. this is very complicated. i would categorize these talks and everything that secretary gates is talking about in brussels right now as very important but also easier said than done. easy to execute but hard to get right.

>>are we count tong
afghan government
to be able to come to an enfofrs forceable deal or will we be involved in trying to make it happen and will be involved in trying to make it stick?

>>i think the u.s. has been involved in multiple efforts for several years to bring some elements of the
taliban
back in. think the only way it really works is if this is an afghan-led process. if karzai and others in the
afghan government
can actually facilitate a power-sharing deal. if it's seen to be something that we execute ourselves, it may not sustain itself, and at the
end of the day
, all of the parties have got to agree to it. i think the news reports in "the
wall street journal
" and "the new york times" you're talking about allude to a nato official says the u.s. has facilitated some travel. a lot of this has
happened before
, too, in places like
saudi arabia
. there have been talks for years, and i think we need to wait to see if there's more there in terms of whether there's a sustainable agreement here.

>>right. and one of the things i know that you have worked on and studied is the connection between the
war effort
and
americans
' feelings about the war.

>>right.

>>if this is the way the war ends, either in the short term, 5 term, or,
god forbid
, the mgd the long term, tell us how it plays out here. we installeded ten years later that government make as deal with the
taliban
. how does that play out here among the american public?

>>well, thing the key factor, number one, is done the american public perceive we're safer as a result of all these actions? we're in
afghanistan
because of the 9/11 attacks, and i think if through ice a sense that we actually degraded
al qaeda
and others, i think if we passed the theest -- i think we have passed the test when you hear 50 to 100
al qaeda
representatives perhaps in
afghanistan
-- then beyond that oochz, think there's this issue of most
americans
today, sadly, i think, are disconnected from these wars. know you were out in
afghanistan
earlier this summer. the burden of these wars are actually being borne mostly by the troops, other people serving in the
u.s. government
and their families. that's a very narrow slice of the american public and because we're financing this war and all of the wars on borrowed money, most
americans
don't feel the financial impact of this. so the sad thing is when you look at the midterm elections and the politics of
national security
the vast majority of
americans
aren't affected by what's going on right now and this disconnection, think, is one of the most dangers things. so i, you know, think there'll be less attention to how this ends if it ends peacefully.

>>which is bad in the sense of our moral obligation to be connected to this fighting and dieing in our name.

>>absolutely.

>>and it may be good in the soechbs actually trying to wind doubtdown the war without it being politicized and extended for fame and glory. brian katulis. thank you very much for joining us. appreciate